Wednesday, March 18, 2009

At -49c with windchill, .......(you know I'm just going to drop the windchill thing, it is always windy here in Saskatchewan, especially on the bald prairie where I take my images from), I really , really didn't want to go outside to take a pic of the March Full Moon, but I thought with the cold temps I may get some wacky images of the Moon.

When the warm less dense upper atmosphere meets the colder dense atmosphere, that is -49c for example, the place where they meet acts as a refracting lens and it inverts the bottom of the Moon, what you get is the real Moon setting on a fake mirage Moon, kind of cool, at one point, the Moon looks like a mushroom cloud.

At least with the Moon I know exactly how long it takes to set so I can sit in my car until the last possible minute before jumping out and snapping the pics. Because of the Earth's daily rotation the Moon appears to travel through the sky it's own diameter , or roughly .5 degree every 5 minutes, so if I want to shoot a 10 minute real time movie clip I pop out of my car when it is around 2 Moon lengths from setting. Also just for trivia sake, because the Moon orbits the Earth in the same direction as the Earth spins on its axis, the Moon appears to travel backwards, or along with us in the sky it's own diameter, or .5 degree every hour, over a 24 hour period that's 12 degrees, multiply that by 30, the average amount of days in a month and you get....TA DA.. 360 degrees or a complete Lunar orbit of the Earth....just so you know.

To take the movie clip below I had to stand outside in the frigging cold -49c weather and count down 5 seconds to take each image, let me tell you it was hard enough concentrating not to freeze and die let alone count down the 5 seconds, but in the end it was worth it.

At around 56 seconds into the clip notice the fake Moon rise to meet the real Moon. Actually because the atmosphere itself acts like a refracting lens, the Moon we see sitting on the horizon is actually a fake Moon, the real Moon is just below the horizon, the atmosphere refracts the real Moon up to what we actually see, so in essence what you are watching is the fake fake Moon rising as the fake Moon is setting, we don't really ever see the real Moon. I know this is a lot of technical stuff but I find it interesting, maybe some of you can follow, if not, you can just look at the pretty images, at least I think they're pretty and call it a day, anyways hope you enjoy the video.

Lol Jackie, hey I'm still not sure exactly what a black hole is, I don't think there are too many people if any out there that do know for sure, so no worries, say hi to Walter for me when he gets back home.\m/\m/

Beautiful moon shots, Bob! I hope you have the proper thermals for being out in such cold weather.

I missed getting some awesome sunset shots tonight. I usually don't see the sunset because we're on the sunrise side of town, but I had to drive my grandson to his house to pick up his contact solution so he could spend the night and as I went by an east/west street I spotted the most beautiful big bright orange sun setting at the end of it with deep blues and purples all around it. Unfortunately, I hadn't brought my camera along. :(

Thanks Stephanie, thought you'd get it. I hear you about the safety , I try to dress in layers, but that cold wind does a job on the eyes, fingers and toes, I really need like a spacesuit, any idea where I can get one on the cheap?lol.

Wow, never knew that, it does look like a mushroom cloud. Bob, is it refraction from atmosphere or reflection from snow (or both)? I read about atmosphere causing refraction but doesn't that simply bend light and cause moon/sun to look ellipsoid rather than a sphere? It wouldn't create a mirror image, will it?

Thanks Priyank, good questions, the atmosphere does a lot of strange things, even invert depending on the extremity of the temp inversions and the difference in the densities of the lower and upper atmospheres, and at -49c, there is a lot, sometimes it even blocks the light altogether.\m/\m/

I use a 300 mm lens on all my shots unless otherwise stated, plus I just bought a 1.5 tel-extender which effectively makes it a 450mm lens, then I do some cropping to frame it properly. The key I find is with the Canon 40D I have live view with x10 magnification I can zoom in on the spot before I take the shot and get a real tight focus.\m/\m/

Wow man, you are really getting good at that movie stuff - sound track and everything. I could definitely see the round moon transform into a huge elongated egg just before it set. Fantastic. One of these days, though, you're going to stand out there a little too long and become a permanent fixture - frozen.

Hello Bob JohnsonGlad to meet you and your blog.Simply dreamfull.Hope also like to visit mine, Bioterra, an environmental blog (mainly in Portuguese, but many links are english based)Abraços*(Star) Hugs***João Soares***Portugal